CHAPTER VIII. 



THE FUTURE OF THE LIVING WORLD.* 



SCIENCE is at all times trying to read the future 

 by means of the past. No one questions the right 

 of astronomy to make predictions, and her success 

 in this direction is everywhere recognized. It is, 

 then, certainly a legitimate question for us to ask 

 here whether the past history of life cannot give us 

 indications of the direction of the drift of the living 

 world, and thus enable us with something like prob- 

 ability to look into its future. Such predictions 

 cannot of course claim anything like the certainty 

 of the predictions of astronomy, for the complexity 

 of the problem is too great. At the same time, a 

 little study will show that there are some definite 

 results plainly indicated by the drift of the past, and 

 a clearer idea of the meaning of past history can be 

 obtained by trying to see in what direction it turns 

 our thoughts for the future. 



We have just seen that a fair idea of the life of the 

 world can be obtained by comparing it to a giant 



* The ideas advanced in this chapter were first published in the 

 American Naturalist, 1886, from which part of the following pages 

 are quoted. 



ii , 177 



